What Happens When Computers, Not Teachers, Pick What Students Learn?Should we automate some parts of a teacher’s day?The Hechinger Report

Teacher John Garuccio wrote a multiplication problem on a digital whiteboard at David A. Boody Intermediate School in Brooklyn. About 150 sixth graders are in this math class — yes, 150 — but Garuccio’s task was to help just 20 of them, with a lesson tailored to their needs.

A computer system picked this lesson for this group of students based on a quiz they’d taken a day earlier. Similar targeted lessons were being used by other teachers and students working together, in small groups, in an open classroom the size of a cafeteria. The computer system orchestrates how each math class unfolds every day.

As more schools adopt blended learning – methods that combine classroom teachers and computer-assisted lessons – some are taking the idea a step further and creating personalized programs of instruction.

One Vision of Tomorrow’s College: Cheap, and You Get an Education,
Not a DegreeThe University of Everywhere is on the horizon and this is what it will look like and what attending it will meanThe Washington Post

Words like “semester” and “credit hour” have no meaning. The organization won’t control the evidence of what students learn.

Courses will be built around immersive digital learning environments created by teams of people specializing in different aspects of the learning experience using open-source components shared by millions of educators collaborating.

And more importantly: A larger percentage of the education that has been historically confined to scarce, expensive colleges and universities will be made available to anyone, anywhere.

A School Where Students, Teachers Remix Their Schedules Every WeekWhat happens when 14-year-olds have a say in the school day?The Hechinger Report

A set schedule for the semester is a thing of the past at Design Tech High School. Teachers create a new plan every week, based on the students’ progress in class. Also, students decide for themselves how to spend certain segments of their day.

At the innovative school, teachers blend technology with in-person instruction and students can sign up for online courses for subjects that aren’t offered in the school. Students here are challenged to solve real-world problems. To do so, they are taught to use a design-thinking process created at Stanford University.

For Many Academics, the Web is Just a Means to An End: Shifting Gears to Solve the Digital DivideThe London School of Economics and Political Science

The academic community faces a significant problem in staying up-to-date with new technologies. Often the easiest option for researchers is not to engage rather than trying a new way of working.

In academia, the problem has often been a lack of translation: academics are advised how to use Twitter but rarely why. From the academic’s perspective all of these things take time and that includes figuring out how to use them. As a result tools are used sporadically, in silos and incorrectly.

The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you're trying to teach. Don't mistake social media for socializing. They're different.

Edutopia blogger Vicki Davis, in the first half of a pro-and-con discussion about social media in the classroom, positions it as a vital life skill and provides 12 positive examples of classroom use.

How Teachers Will Change the Future of TechA tech-savvy nation starts with tech-savvy teachersEdudemic

We often write about how technology can help teachers, but sometimes it’s useful to take a step back and consider how teachers influence technology. The way that teachers present technology skills will also affect what kinds of technological thinkers their students become.

It's important to use technology to help you achieve your goals, but also know when to leave it behind. After all, we don’t want a nation full of students who are constantly distracted by the latest, flashiest things.

Steps for Applying Design Thinking to Build and Evolve SchoolsMindShift

Students don’t usually get to design their own high schools. Neither do parents or community members who lack experience in education. But, in what could become a national model, a new high school in San Jose, California is using a process called “design thinking.”

Design thinking is a method of problem solving developed largely by Stanford University professors who sought to codify a product design process that emphasized creative solutions to meet users’ needs.

More than 100,000 teacher-created digital textbooks are now available online through the CK-12 Foundation’s free STEM content and tools platform.The 106,000 digital texts, or FlexBooks, come from the roughly 30,000 schools using CK-12’s free and open digital resources.

So creativity is not 100% malleable – personality sets its limits – yet it can still be nurtured via deliberate interventions, especially over a long period of time. Genetic studies suggest that genes determine only 10% of the variability in creative potential, so there is a lot of room for development.

What Happens When You Flip an Education Conference? We’re About to Find OutThe Hechinger Report

You’ve heard of the flipped classroom. Now comes the flipped conference. About 300 educators are expected to attend the Colorado Blended and Online Learning Flipped conference this week. This is, in the words of those who created the conference, “unlike anything ever produced for the education industry.” Participants will get a week’s worth of information in one day, they said, because of the flipped set-up.